City Power sees increased calls to report faults following load shedding

City Power saw an increase in calls to report faults due to system failures and trips on Saturday following load shedding restorations.

Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that most areas – including the northern suburbs such as Bryanston and Randburg, south of Joburg, Lenasia, and Roodepoort areas – had reported faults with some still battling to return to normal.

Eskom moved to stage 2 load shedding on Saturday, which was set to continue until 23:00, Fin24 reported.

It would then shift to stage 1 from 23:00 on Saturday until 09:00 on Sunday, after which stage 2 would be in place until 23:00 on Sunday.

Mangena said that while faults were mostly due to ageing infrastructure in those areas, they believed residents’ behaviour was also a contributing factor and that they should switch appliances off during load shedding to help avoid trips.

CEO Lerato Setshedi said: “Our system is taking a serious knock especially during restorations after load shedding because when power is restored, it finds more people with appliances on, thus leading to unnecessary trips.

“We understand the serious adjustments that our customers have to make to get used to load shedding, and we apologise for the inconvenience. As City Power this is the last thing we wish on them, but we need to help Eskom save electricity to avoid total shutdown of the system.”

Mangena said work to repair areas affected by system failures was underway and power should gradually be restored in different suburbs.

He said repairs to the burnt out section of Bryan North substation were expected to be completed in 24 hours.

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